The name of Founders’ Court marks the site; this was formerly the lane which led through the Company’s buildings to a garden beyond; the buildings stretched from St. Margaret Street to Coleman Street, Moorgate Street not then existing. This hall was burnt down in the Great Fire and rebuilt. The Company let off portions of their hall, and in 1853 let the whole on a long lease and bought a house in St. Swithin’s Lane, on the site of which they built their present hall in 1877. ST. SWITHIN’S CHURCH St. Swithin, to whom this church is dedicated, was Bishop of Winchester and Chancellor to King Egbert. Formerly the usual designation of the church was St. Swithin’s in Candlewick Street, but Newcourt (1708) states that St. Swithin, London Stone, was becoming the more common title. The stone at that time stood on the south side of the road opposite to the church. No record exists of the original foundation of the church. Probably it was built soon after the death of St. Swithin in 862, or at any rate before A.D. 1000. It is mentioned in the taxation book of Pope Nicholas IV. in 1291. The first rector given by Newcourt is Robert de Galdeford, who resigned in 1331. In 1420 licence was obtained to rebuild and enlarge the church and steeple, and Sir John Hend, Lord Mayor, 1391 and 1404, was, says Stow, “an especial benefactor thereunto, as appeareth by his arms in the glass windows, even in the tops of them.” The hall of the Drapers Company was at that time Sir John Hend’s house in St. Swithin’s Lane. The church thus rebuilt consisted of a chancel and a nave separated from the north and south aisles by pillars. There was a chapel of St. Katherine and St. Margaret. From the date of rebuilding it is evident that the style of the architecture was Early Decorated. The maps of Aggas (1560) and Newcourt (1658) agree in showing a small battlemented church, with a square battlemented tower (without spire) at the west end and level with the street. In 1607-1608 the church was “fully beautified and finished at the cost and charge of the parishioners.” It was again repaired shortly before the Great Fire, when £1000 was spent upon it. The church was burnt down in the Great Fire, and rebuilt by Wren in 1678, when the neighbouring parish of St. Mary Bothaw was annexed. In 1869 and 1879 it was entirely “rearranged.”